Arcen Games

General Category => A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 => : x4000 June 06, 2011, 12:40:41 PM

: #12 Will Drop The Pre-Alpha Moniker, And Has Big Surprises -- Hits in 1-2 Weeks
: x4000 June 06, 2011, 12:40:41 PM
Original: http://christophermpark.blogspot.com/2011/06/avww-12-will-drop-pre-alpha-moniker-and.html

Please understand that my intent is not to tease, here -- a lot of game companies give the barest hints of information, and try to drive you nuts with speculation and extrapolation.  Folks familiar with Arcen know that's not our style.

That said, what I do want to tell you is that there are several pretty major surprises coming for A Valley Without Wind in the next developer diary, but that I won't talk about specifically what until that dev diary arrives.  That will be in a week or two, depending on how development goes during that time.

Why on earth would I make such an empty, teasing-style post?  Frankly... because whenever Major Things Change without forewarning, certain people I know tend to get annoyed with me.  So this is your forewarning: the next time you see AVWW, it's going to be pretty different in a lot of fundamental ways, although not the most fundamental stuff.

What's happened to cause this?  We had the epiphany that this game didn't even know it was looking for.  There was a similar point, about March of 2009, when suddenly I had the idea to make the AI asymmetrical in AI War.  It had been a game about even contests of will, but suddenly it was to be a David and Goliath sort of situation.  That changed everything, but also tied together all the best of what had been inwork on AI War since November 2008.

That's what's happened here: we've had our big ties-everything-together idea, and it changes a few very core things about the game, but does so in a way that keeps all the coolest stuff and in fact augments it.  All that "macro game" stuff that Keith is working on (perma-death, settlements, NPCs, deeds, hopes... basically all that stuff that people are most excited about) is alive and well, just to set you at ease.

Again, sorry for the tease.  We'll have videos and developer diaries as soon as we humanly can complete the work required to share them.  I have never been so excited about this project, though, and I think others will share the sentiment when they see how all these changes come together.

The last thing I'll say is: thanks.  The watershed moment came about while thinking about fan feedback on our existing developer diaries and videos.  There have been various persistent complaints on the blog, the forums, and youtube, and thinking about how to solve all of those is what led to the epiphany.  So thanks for that!
: Re: #12 Will Drop The Pre-Alpha Moniker, And Has Big Surprises -- Hits in 1-2 Weeks
: chemical_art June 06, 2011, 12:57:10 PM
I've always liked surprises  :)  I am so excited about an unreleased game.


: Re: #12 Will Drop The Pre-Alpha Moniker, And Has Big Surprises -- Hits in 1-2 Weeks
: Flatfingers June 06, 2011, 02:18:57 PM
Wait -- how am I supposed to get more enthusiastic about this game?  :D

I hope a little speculation is OK. The one persistent knock has been the choice of graphics -- 2D with sprite movement. People didn't like the perspective, or the blending, or the animations, etc., etc. (I'm on record as preferring 1st-person; I find it vastly more immersive. OTOH, it's also more expensive, and the proposed art style was never a dealbreaker for me.)

So if I were to rudely guess, I'd guess that something about the game's visual representation was being modified. The question is, modified to what? What visual change could "tie everything together" in a way the previous visual style didn't?

Or am I completely off, and the complaint being addressed via epiphany is something more related to story/NPCs/world-content?

Looking forward to the big reveal!
: Re: #12 Will Drop The Pre-Alpha Moniker, And Has Big Surprises -- Hits in 1-2 Weeks
: eRe4s3r June 06, 2011, 02:28:11 PM
That the game changes direction drastically (compared to ep11 of the developer story arc ;p) does not sound like a bad thing. Even with the gameplay features announced there was still something lacking, indeed something that ties everything together and makes us "care to play" to begin with. And i don't think its just a graphic thing.

If its the scope of symmetric vs assymetric warfare in an RTS, then this change is likely drastically changing the overarching gameplay direction and not graphics. Maybe it will nudge the game closer to a rpg? Will be interesting to see ,P

So for me, i am welcoming the ep12 of the developer story arc and any drastic changes it might bring ;)

: Re: #12 Will Drop The Pre-Alpha Moniker, And Has Big Surprises -- Hits in 1-2 Weeks
: Otagan June 06, 2011, 02:47:18 PM
Good thing I've been keeping my expectations under control.  This will probably blow that restraint out of the water.
: Re: #12 Will Drop The Pre-Alpha Moniker, And Has Big Surprises -- Hits in 1-2 Weeks
: Ozymandiaz June 06, 2011, 03:03:51 PM
Given that we knew fairly little already, I say any changes you desire to make in order to make a better game is good imo.

Looking forward to what is happening :)
: Re: #12 Will Drop The Pre-Alpha Moniker, And Has Big Surprises -- Hits in 1-2 Weeks
: Echo35 June 06, 2011, 03:07:15 PM
You say it's dropping the "Pre-Alpha" title. Does this mean we get a Beta?
: Re: #12 Will Drop The Pre-Alpha Moniker, And Has Big Surprises -- Hits in 1-2 Weeks
: x4000 June 06, 2011, 03:33:27 PM
Thanks for the kind words, folks.  :)

Given that we knew fairly little already, I say any changes you desire to make in order to make a better game is good imo.

If you read the various interviews and developer diaries, etc, you actually know an immense amount.  But that information is pretty spread out, to say the least. ;)

You say it's dropping the "Pre-Alpha" title. Does this mean we get a Beta?

Well, then it will be just Alpha.  Still internal alpha.  Beta is looking like it will be the first week in August, assuming all goes well, but no firm commitment on that quite yet.  Still a lot to do before we hit beta.


EDIT: And lest speculation get wildly out of hand, we're not moving to full 3D or anything like that.  There are both major visual and nonvisual things being changed, though.
: Re: #12 Will Drop The Pre-Alpha Moniker, And Has Big Surprises -- Hits in 1-2 Weeks
: getter77 June 06, 2011, 05:52:46 PM
It'll be interesting to see where the ride goes next....I shall prepare in my traditional manner:  eating delicious dinners.  For good or ill, though all signs point to good in this case, being deliciously sated enhances everything.

Nice to have a ballpark Beta figure for August'ish as well~   8)
: Re: #12 Will Drop The Pre-Alpha Moniker, And Has Big Surprises -- Hits in 1-2 Weeks
: keith.lamothe June 06, 2011, 07:31:13 PM
FYI, there are other big surprises that we've been keeping under wraps for a longer time and will keep them longer, what's coming up is just more of a we-need-to-tell-you-sooner thing ;)
: Re: #12 Will Drop The Pre-Alpha Moniker, And Has Big Surprises -- Hits in 1-2 Weeks
: x4000 June 06, 2011, 07:35:05 PM
FYI, there are other big surprises that we've been keeping under wraps for a longer time and will keep them longer, what's coming up is just more of a we-need-to-tell-you-sooner thing ;)

Now, that's just mean to say.  ;)  But... true.  Suffice it to say, we haven't revealed every last detail about the game because we want players to have some joy of discovery when they first play it.  And it's a big game.
: Re: #12 Will Drop The Pre-Alpha Moniker, And Has Big Surprises -- Hits in 1-2 Weeks
: Martyn van Buren June 07, 2011, 02:59:21 AM
Cool, sounds like good news to me.  I'm certainly not waiting for AWWW because I think the crafting mechanics are perfect;  I want to see the best Chris and Arcen Games can do with the Legend of Zelda.
: Re: #12 Will Drop The Pre-Alpha Moniker, And Has Big Surprises -- Hits in 1-2 Weeks
: Ozymandiaz June 07, 2011, 04:59:14 AM

Given that we knew fairly little already, I say any changes you desire to make in order to make a better game is good imo.

If you read the various interviews and developer diaries, etc, you actually know an immense amount.  But that information is pretty spread out, to say the least. ;)



I guess that is true :)
: Re: #12 Will Drop The Pre-Alpha Moniker, And Has Big Surprises -- Hits in 1-2 Weeks
: Zhaine June 07, 2011, 03:10:45 PM
Is the FAQ the first place you said you're heading towards mouse (and keyboard) support or did I miss this previously??

Either way wooooop! Not that I had doubts about the game as keyboard/gamepad only, but this change promises good things to me :)
: Re: #12 Will Drop The Pre-Alpha Moniker, And Has Big Surprises -- Hits in 1-2 Weeks
: x4000 June 07, 2011, 03:12:57 PM
Is the FAQ the first place you said you're heading towards mouse (and keyboard) support or did I miss this previously??

Either way wooooop! Not that I had doubts about the game as keyboard/gamepad only, but this change promises good things to me :)

Yep, that's actually one of the changes coming up, actually.  The FAQ is the first place that was mentioned. :)
: Re: #12 Will Drop The Pre-Alpha Moniker, And Has Big Surprises -- Hits in 1-2 Weeks
: Teal_Blue June 08, 2011, 04:19:52 AM

:)  Looking forward to the new ideas!
AI War was very cool, though i think this title is probably more my cup of tea with all the exploration and crafting.  :)

But different gamers like different things, just glad you put in the rpg elements. 

-Teal



: Re: #12 Will Drop The Pre-Alpha Moniker, And Has Big Surprises -- Hits in 1-2 Weeks
: tigersfan June 08, 2011, 08:54:58 AM
Is the FAQ the first place you said you're heading towards mouse (and keyboard) support or did I miss this previously??

Either way wooooop! Not that I had doubts about the game as keyboard/gamepad only, but this change promises good things to me :)

Yep, that's actually one of the changes coming up, actually.  The FAQ is the first place that was mentioned. :)

If the idea in my head of what this game is going to be is correct, and you guys are moving to more of a keyboard/mouse control scheme, then I'd recommend checking out Terraria's scheme. While I dont think the in-game stuff would work for you guys all that well (though maybe), I think the rest of the UI (the item use, the way crafting works, etc.) is a good UI, and adopting something similar would, IMO, be worth looking into for you guys.
: Re: #12 Will Drop The Pre-Alpha Moniker, And Has Big Surprises -- Hits in 1-2 Weeks
: x4000 June 08, 2011, 09:03:17 AM
We're definitely aware of Terraria, and it's something Keith has played a fair bit; he brought it to my attention when we were just getting started on AVWW and I made a certain suggestion, actually.  I haven't played it, but I've played loads of Minecraft, which I understand has something of a similar interface in some ways, and even in the past versions I think you can see a bit of a Minecraft influence in things like the ability bar, etc (though Neverwinter Nights, which I also enjoyed, plus a number of dungeon crawlers that Keith enjoyed, could just as easily be said to be the inspiration).

At any rate, one of the things coming up in the reveal is a revamped UI in a lot of ways, although I'm not sure if we'll actually have the menus at the point we want to show them, yet.  But we've gone through not one but two conceptual overhauls of our GUI in the last couple of weeks.  The result is something that is super, super streamlined but also really powerful; even moreso than Minecraft, in our opinion, although obviously the games are very different in focus in the first place, so that's not even a knock against MC.  Our inspirations for the final designs came from diverse places such as what we already had, Minecraft, Torchlight, Neverwinter Nights, and a few others. 

Our primary goal was to have the least-possible amount of clicking and fiddling with anything so that you can just play, and our second goal was to make it so that you wouldn't need to run back to settlements all the time to store your stuff because of super-limited inventory.

Anyway, that's a pretty safe topic, and it's one of the more minor things that is changing at the moment; minor mainly because we hadn't shown the existing version to anyone.  The new UI setup is aeons better than the old, although we're not done implementing it yet.
: Re: #12 Will Drop The Pre-Alpha Moniker, And Has Big Surprises -- Hits in 1-2 Weeks
: keith.lamothe June 08, 2011, 09:05:20 AM
We've been looking at Terraria, yea, it does have some good interface things.  Not particualrly wild about the way mouse precision can be really important in a few places (chopping down trees), and definitely not about how the mouse is basically required to fight at all (iirc, maybe they do have a "swing weapon in front of you" button and I just missed it), but there's good stuff there.
: Re: #12 Will Drop The Pre-Alpha Moniker, And Has Big Surprises -- Hits in 1-2 Weeks
: tigersfan June 08, 2011, 09:12:32 AM
We've been looking at Terraria, yea, it does have some good interface things.  Not particualrly wild about the way mouse precision can be really important in a few places (chopping down trees), and definitely not about how the mouse is basically required to fight at all (iirc, maybe they do have a "swing weapon in front of you" button and I just missed it), but there's good stuff there.

Yeah, I'm not actually a fan of the required mouse precision either, but, I was more talking about how easy it is to change the things in the action bar, how the crafting of items works, stuff like that.

(If there is a "swing weapon in front of you" button, I don't know about it, but I wish I did.)
: Re: #12 Will Drop The Pre-Alpha Moniker, And Has Big Surprises -- Hits in 1-2 Weeks
: keith.lamothe June 08, 2011, 09:16:20 AM
Yea, we've been looking real close at the interface for putting something onto the action bar, etc, from both Terraria and Minecraft.  To be honest, we think we have an even better idea than either of them, but we'll see :)

And Terraria's crafting interface is pretty good, yea, but I think it could be less mouse-dependent, though having the mouse option there does have definite advantages.
: Re: #12 Will Drop The Pre-Alpha Moniker, And Has Big Surprises -- Hits in 1-2 Weeks
: x4000 June 08, 2011, 09:18:59 AM
In terms of crafting, though, I should note that we're not really doing it like Minecraft or I presume Terraria -- it's just selecting from recipes based on what you have in stock, not having to make little voodoo symbols with them. ;)  I actually love the voodoo symbols in Minecraft, but we have way more recipes and I don't want players having to use an external reference for that stuff, etc.
: Re: #12 Will Drop The Pre-Alpha Moniker, And Has Big Surprises -- Hits in 1-2 Weeks
: keith.lamothe June 08, 2011, 09:21:16 AM
Terraria doesn't do the arrangement thing, it just gives you a list of things you can craft with your current inventory and what workbench/furnace/whatevers you're standing near and you can pull them off the crafting menu onto your inventory (there's a few modifiers for pulling multiple copies at once), and it deducts the ingredients automatically.
: Re: #12 Will Drop The Pre-Alpha Moniker, And Has Big Surprises -- Hits in 1-2 Weeks
: x4000 June 08, 2011, 09:23:54 AM
Neat.
: Re: #12 Will Drop The Pre-Alpha Moniker, And Has Big Surprises -- Hits in 1-2 Weeks
: tigersfan June 08, 2011, 09:33:53 AM
Yeah, the Terraria crafting mechanism is pretty neat. Keith, if you think yours is better, I'm willing to reserve judgement. I mostly wanted to point out Terraria, to make you aware of one type that does work well. Looking forward to seeing the game. Hurry up and get a beta released already! :-)
: Re: #12 Will Drop The Pre-Alpha Moniker, And Has Big Surprises -- Hits in 1-2 Weeks
: realcoolguy June 08, 2011, 03:43:16 PM
That's what's happened here: we've had our big ties-everything-together idea...

So the AI is born in AVWW and it likes puzzle games (update Tidalis coming too, to reflect this) but our hero needs to stop it before it's too late.    :D
: Re: #12 Will Drop The Pre-Alpha Moniker, And Has Big Surprises -- Hits in 1-2 Weeks
: x4000 June 08, 2011, 03:46:12 PM
That's what's happened here: we've had our big ties-everything-together idea...

So the AI is born in AVWW and it likes puzzle games (update Tidalis coming too, to reflect this) but our hero needs to stop it before it's too late.    :D

Haha -- well, ties all the parts of AVWW together, not all the parts of all our games. ;)  But, that's pretty funny. :)
: Re: #12 Will Drop The Pre-Alpha Moniker, And Has Big Surprises -- Hits in 1-2 Weeks
: Echo35 June 08, 2011, 04:53:29 PM
That's what's happened here: we've had our big ties-everything-together idea...

So the AI is born in AVWW and it likes puzzle games (update Tidalis coming too, to reflect this) but our hero needs to stop it before it's too late.    :D

Haha -- well, ties all the parts of AVWW together, not all the parts of all our games. ;)  But, that's pretty funny. :)

Please at least have some references :P
: Re: #12 Will Drop The Pre-Alpha Moniker, And Has Big Surprises -- Hits in 1-2 Weeks
: x4000 June 08, 2011, 05:03:34 PM
That's what's happened here: we've had our big ties-everything-together idea...

So the AI is born in AVWW and it likes puzzle games (update Tidalis coming too, to reflect this) but our hero needs to stop it before it's too late.    :D

Haha -- well, ties all the parts of AVWW together, not all the parts of all our games. ;)  But, that's pretty funny. :)

Please at least have some references :P

Oh, you bet we will. :D
: Re: #12 Will Drop The Pre-Alpha Moniker, And Has Big Surprises -- Hits in 1-2 Weeks
: Nalgas June 08, 2011, 05:59:49 PM
Our inspirations for the final designs came from diverse places such as what we already had, Minecraft, Torchlight, Neverwinter Nights, and a few others.

That's sort of funny, because there are things about all of those that bug me, and Terraria, too.

Minecraft is pretty good aside from the crafting, which is a complete undiscoverable nightmare without a guide of some sort, even though it's a really neat idea in theory.

Torchlight...I guess it mostly worked because I never actually had to use it, but I honestly thought the UI was pretty ugly/gaudy/over-decorated (although the 3D in-game stuff itself looked great) and trying too hard to reference Diablo in some places rather than do things that are actually a good idea, like the absurdly large health/mana meters that were just in the way.  I pretty much never had to interact with the skill bar or assign anything to it, because as a Vanquisher, once you have the exploding shot, that is your only skill you ever use, and you win the game just by holding the button for it down until the end of the game, even on Very Hard.  I think if I had ended up having to interact with the UI more, I probably would've found more specific things that bugged me about it more than Titan Quest (which itself is far, far from perfect, but remapping the keys helps...).  The inventory system for it (and TQ, and Diablo, and almost every other ARPG ever) can die in a fire, though.  People who make games that focus around collecting large amounts of rare/unique items and give you not just a finite amount of storage space but a very small amount of storage space are jerks.

I don't even remember what I hated about NWN, but I do remember that I hated the interface so much that I couldn't even finish playing the demo.  Hate hate hate. (http://crackaddict.com/~nalgas/hate.png)  Zero recollection of why, because it's been so many years, but my friends who all loved the game and generally have similar taste to me all still remember vividly how irritable trying to play it made me.  Heh.

It's kind of funny how people mention the crafting in Terraria as being particularly, because I've been playing a lot of it lately with my AI War group, and it's one of our gripes with the game.  It's a lot more straightforward than Minecraft, but I definitely wouldn't call it good.  Maybe adequate would be more accurate.  Having a gigantic list that you can only see a tiny piece of that's fairly arbitrarily sorted that you can't re-sort that changes as you walk around and depends on what you currently have in your inventory and what you're standing near and gives no indication of that is weird at best and a little frustrating at other times.  People have only complained about the mouse targeting a couple times.  The inventory management is actually a much bigger issue in our group, and it's particularly bad when your inventory is full and so are your chests and piggy bank and you're trying to rearrange things.  You are in for a massive amount of clicking and shuffling stuff around when that happens.  Also, variable stack size limits for different types of items (instead of only 1 or 256 like Minecraft) just confuses everyone when they can't remember them all.
: Re: #12 Will Drop The Pre-Alpha Moniker, And Has Big Surprises -- Hits in 1-2 Weeks
: x4000 June 08, 2011, 06:58:02 PM
Our inspirations for the final designs came from diverse places such as what we already had, Minecraft, Torchlight, Neverwinter Nights, and a few others.

That's sort of funny, because there are things about all of those that bug me, and Terraria, too.

Oh, believe me, there are things about all of those that bug us, too.  If there was some game that had done it what we felt was perfectly, we'd just do the same as they did.  Rather like the camera in AI War, and the build loops, are straight out of SupCom -- you can't improved that mechanic in my book.

But, to me, the problem of inventory and some of these other interfaces has never been perfectly solved.  I dislike just throwing a lot of menus at the problem, but having things that are really discoverable like in Minecraft has many drawbacks, too.  There have been bits that we like from many games, though, so we're taking all those bits and doing our own thing for the parts that we didn't like.  I'm sure this will require some honing and revision as we go (and we're like three major redesigns into that and aren't even to alpha yet), but I think that the latest design, which is largely Keith's doing, is pretty close to where we need to be at worst.  I don't know that this particular interface problem is solvable in a "perfect" way, but we really are trying to go above and beyond the usability issues that plague most games of this broad sort.
: Re: #12 Will Drop The Pre-Alpha Moniker, And Has Big Surprises -- Hits in 1-2 Weeks
: Nalgas June 08, 2011, 07:43:06 PM
Rather like the camera in AI War, and the build loops, are straight out of SupCom -- you can't improved that mechanic in my book.

Funny you mention that, too, because I was just thinking about that recently.  I didn't play those games until after I'd played AI War, and when I did, I noticed how much of that was taken from them.  However, I find it really hard to play them after getting used to AI War's way of doing things, because there are lots and lots of little improvements you guys have included that really add up as a whole.  Every five minutes I kept discovering a keyboard shortcut or minor feature didn't exist that would drive me nuts.  It's amazing how much you don't realize how useful a key to split a group of units in half/thirds is until it's not there, for example.  At least those games are still sort of playable, though.  Trying to play traditional Blizzard-style RTS games without proper queues and full-map strategic zoom (like AI War/SupCom/GalCiv/etc.) makes me a sad panda these days, even though that's what I grew up with.
: Re: #12 Will Drop The Pre-Alpha Moniker, And Has Big Surprises -- Hits in 1-2 Weeks
: x4000 June 08, 2011, 07:48:46 PM
Incremental improvements, I think that's what really can be offered to a larger genre by indies.  And the reason is players: a lot of those favorite shortcuts of yours are not something that anyone thought up at Arcen.  Heck, FRD mode was one of the first player requests we ever got.  And the half and thirds shortcuts were, too.  AI War's interface isn't perfect either (I think perfection is impossible), but it's got positive input and contributions from more knowledgeable people than any AAA game, I'd wager.  It really does take a village for stuff like that.
: Re: #12 Will Drop The Pre-Alpha Moniker, And Has Big Surprises -- Hits in 1-2 Weeks
: Nice Save June 09, 2011, 08:50:18 PM
AAA developers get a lot of stick in indie circles for not listening to the players, but when you stop and think about what the majority of their customer base consists of it makes some sense.

It's easy for good ideas to get lost in a sea of whining, and the hardcore minority are often vocally and seemingly automatically opposed to even the most inconsequential changes.

(If you've ever read an EVE devlog comments thread you know exactly what I mean)
: Re: #12 Will Drop The Pre-Alpha Moniker, And Has Big Surprises -- Hits in 1-2 Weeks
: keith.lamothe June 09, 2011, 08:55:10 PM
(If you've ever read an EVE devlog comments thread you know exactly what I mean)
Yea, when it comes to game communities the bigger the pond, the smellier it gets.  I won't elaborate on the mechanics.  Not always, though, I've seen some larger communities where the leadership sets the right kind of example and uses enforcement properly.  It might not ever get as good as a really good indie-game community can get, but it can be reasonable.

When it comes to EVE, though, I think CCP is encouraging and exemplifying a certain kind of mindset in the players that they're going to get more of some kinds of pathological behavior.  Perhaps less of the lowest-common-denominator immaturity, though, and more of the more refined mental maladies.  I'm guessing that's what they want, at least.
: Re: #12 Will Drop The Pre-Alpha Moniker, And Has Big Surprises -- Hits in 1-2 Weeks
: Nalgas June 09, 2011, 09:06:43 PM
AAA developers get a lot of stick in indie circles for not listening to the players, but when you stop and think about what the majority of their customer base consists of it makes some sense.

Honestly the majority of suggestions/requests/demands from even the communities of smaller/indie games are frequently bad/stupid/counterproductive.  Game design and balance is hard, and most people aren't particularly good at it.  The group of people on here is somewhat unusual even among indie games (and almost unheard of for larger ones), but it's probably helped both by the tone set by the devs and by the type of people you're likely to attract with a fairly hardcore non-competitive strategy game that formed the original base of the community here.
: Re: #12 Will Drop The Pre-Alpha Moniker, And Has Big Surprises -- Hits in 1-2 Weeks
: keith.lamothe June 09, 2011, 09:14:05 PM
Honestly the majority of suggestions/requests/demands from even the communities of smaller/indie games are frequently bad/stupid/counterproductive.
Haha, yea, it can be pretty bad.  Arcen's community is strikingly above-average in producing good suggestions, but everyone has bad ideas from time to time.  Even Chris and I have some _major_ lemons, and sometimes we don't notice for a while and it can take a few weeks to iron them back out, but most/all of those happen behind the scenes and only we know about them ;)

The key is remaining conscious of one's own fallibility and not doing something silly like getting upset if someone else rejects the idea because they don't think it's a good one (they might be right, they might not be, it's just not that big a deal).  This is especially true if one does not have technical knowledge of the game in question (much more if one lacks technical knowledge of the field in general).  With that consciousness and persistence, eventually just about anyone comes up with a winner at least occasionally.
: Re: #12 Will Drop The Pre-Alpha Moniker, And Has Big Surprises -- Hits in 1-2 Weeks
: Nalgas June 09, 2011, 09:34:37 PM
It's not like there aren't bad ideas here, because there certainly are, but there are at least a lot fewer of the mind-bogglingly stupid ones that show up constantly at some places, which is nice.  More importantly, though, people actually discuss why ideas are good or bad most of the time instead of just calling each other wrong and stupid, which helps a lot more to reach a useful solution.

A lot of the time it's hard to pin down what it is that's wrong or missing that's inspiring a change you want, even if you're the person who created the game (or other software) in the first place, and a lot of people seem to miss that and just insist that their pet idea will fix everything without realizing the cause of it or what other effects it'll have.  That's probably the most refreshing thing to see less of as a result of the more constructive discussions, aside from less calling people names.  Heh.
: Re: #12 Will Drop The Pre-Alpha Moniker, And Has Big Surprises -- Hits in 1-2 Weeks
: Nice Save June 09, 2011, 09:46:03 PM
I think a lot of the things that make the Arcen games community so good in this respect is the staff attitude to new ideas. You've made it clear on many occasions that you're open to suggestions, and when you reject one not only is there always a good reason, but you take the time to explain it. I've always admired the way you guys are instantly willing to make changes for the better, even when the ideas come from outside. Most people would let their pride get in the way of that.
: Re: #12 Will Drop The Pre-Alpha Moniker, And Has Big Surprises -- Hits in 1-2 Weeks
: keith.lamothe June 09, 2011, 09:51:55 PM
Most people would let their pride get in the way of that.
Oh, we have some pretty strong pride-reactions sometimes; particularly when someone appears to be acting unreasonably, but we actively try to identify/work-around those reactions... maybe after a day or two, in some cases ;)
: Re: #12 Will Drop The Pre-Alpha Moniker, And Has Big Surprises -- Hits in 1-2 Weeks
: x4000 June 10, 2011, 12:16:47 AM
Most people would let their pride get in the way of that.
Oh, we have some pretty strong pride-reactions sometimes; particularly when someone appears to be acting unreasonably, but we actively try to identify/work-around those reactions... maybe after a day or two, in some cases ;)

Not having to talk to people in person is a big help on that, for me.  I can have my pride reaction, swallow that pride, and then address the idea on its merits.  Do that enough, and after a while, depending on the idea and how it is presented, and you don't even get the pride reaction.  Some ideas we just instantly recognize as good, "why didn't I think of that!? I must put it in immediately" sort of ideas, too.  Those are rarer, but definitely happen.  Never a pride reaction with those.

The pride reaction, for me, tends to happen when there's an idea that I really like but which others seem not to (astro trains, control nodes, etc), or when someone is being really forceful about an idea where there isn't an overwhelmingly obvious answer and they haven't made their case well enough to convince me (control nodes again, ship bonuses versus an armor system, etc).

I've found that I don't have to suppress my normal human responses, I just have to not let them rule my actions.  And hey, when somebody other than me thinks of something new that is awesome, it costs me nothing to accept that idea.  I think at least 50% of the various ships added in the expansions, if not far more, were directly from player suggestions with some tuning in the details from Keith and myself.  I mean... 50% is probably really undershooting it, too.

I find that's a really nice way to work, when it comes to an established game that has a certain baseline of existing good design on it, and when everybody on both sides is respectful.  If the core game is broken or not yet finished, you get "too many cooks" syndrome instead of a happy and productive community, I think.  But when you're talking about masses of incremental additions being funneled through one or two developers doing implementation and keeping mindful of the whole design as they do so... that's where have a really smart, dedicated group of core players really pays dividends.  Some of the best innovations of AI War's interface and even mechanics came from that sort of process.

Once we get AVWW to beta, I think we'll start to see that to some degree.  Once we get to 1.0 and after, I think we'll see that increasingly much, and to a similar degree of what happened with AI War.  Though I don't expect AVWW to change as drastically post-1.0, because it's so much more polished in a lot of respects at 1.0.  Morel like starting with AI War 4.0 and going from there, I hope. :)
: Re: #12 Will Drop The Pre-Alpha Moniker, And Has Big Surprises -- Hits in 1-2 Weeks
: Flatfingers June 11, 2011, 02:37:44 AM
Not to get too far OT, but I wanted to comment on this since I occasionally offer suggestions that, although I try to avoid it, may sometimes come across as sounding like, "Well, this is just obviously the Right Thing, duuuh."

I first started having online discussions with people back in the early '80s, and game design discussions in the '00s. And if there's one thing I've learned from all this conversation, it's that trouble starts when people get too personally attached to their ideas.

For example, there were a couple of forums in which we had absolutely massive knock-down, drag-out fights concerning a couple of core ideas for Star Trek Online. In particular the design choice between "you are the ship" and "you are an avatar who can walk around inside your ship" generated incredibly heated arguments. Everyone who had an opinion on either of those options was certain that their way was the right way for this particular game.

And inevitably, someone would show up, state one of those positions in an insultingly "I'm obviously right" kind of way, and then react to any disagreement with their idea as though it was a personal attack on them. There'd be a heated emotional response; those who disagreed would defend themselves; the defenses would set off another round of attacks; and so on.

So from my perspective, keeping design conversations civil usually requires a couple of things. One, we (myself included) should try to remember that "I am not my ideas." If someone disagrees with an idea I have, it's not in any way a personal criticism of me from which I need to aggressively defend myself. (If I need to step away from the keyboard for a little bit, or even write a scathing essay which I then very carefully do NOT post online, that works.) Second, as Keith mentioned, for those folks who just can't separate themselves from their ideas, forum rules forbidding personal attacks and a forum staff who can stop ad hominem fights without punishing the innocent are a requirement for maintaining an environment where people feel welcome and encouraged to contribute their thoughts.

It's harder for a developer who posts on their own forum, though. No one likes being told their baby is ugly; even someone who's pretty objective must get tired of having their intense creative efforts dismissed by some one-line wonder. The temptation to post a retort like, "if it's so obvious, why haven't you made your own game?" must be extreme at times. ;)

So the fact that you guys are willing not only to take this occasional abuse with dignity but to continue to post some of the best design write-ups I have ever seen from any game developer is a tribute to your professionalism. I can't speak for anyone else, but I really appreciate it. Please keep up the great work.
: Re: #12 Will Drop The Pre-Alpha Moniker, And Has Big Surprises -- Hits in 1-2 Weeks
: Nalgas June 11, 2011, 02:57:45 AM
For example, there were a couple of forums in which we had absolutely massive knock-down, drag-out fights concerning a couple of core ideas for Star Trek Online. In particular the design choice between "you are the ship" and "you are an avatar who can walk around inside your ship" generated incredibly heated arguments. Everyone who had an opinion on either of those options was certain that their way was the right way for this particular game.

That got particularly fun, I'm sure, because in addition to the usual attachment to ideas people have, you have to deal with the extra fanaticism that Star Trek fandom brings with it.  On top of that, both sides of that are perfectly valid ideas for a game, so you can't really objectively argue one as being better or worse than the other...but they potentially result in two very different games depending on which of those starting points you're working from.  I bet that had some "vigorous debate" going on.  Heh.
: Re: #12 Will Drop The Pre-Alpha Moniker, And Has Big Surprises -- Hits in 1-2 Weeks
: x4000 June 11, 2011, 09:22:13 AM
Much appreciates. :) And yeah, the temptation to meet one liners with one liners can get pretty extreme at times. We've had a few slips, but mostly just try to keep emotional distance as best we can. That was harder in the early days, and gets harder again at the early days of each new game. Like now with AVWW. But self control is always worth it, I think.
: Re: #12 Will Drop The Pre-Alpha Moniker, And Has Big Surprises -- Hits in 1-2 Weeks
: x4000 June 13, 2011, 10:20:46 PM
Just thought I would mention that we are aiming for next Monday or Tuesday to have the new video and dev diary out.  I don't want to jinx anything, but I think folks will be stunned in a good way.
: Re: #12 Will Drop The Pre-Alpha Moniker, And Has Big Surprises -- Hits in 1-2 Weeks
: Teal_Blue June 13, 2011, 11:54:56 PM
:)   Looking forward to interesting news and video. 

:)

-Teal


: Re: #12 Will Drop The Pre-Alpha Moniker, And Has Big Surprises -- Hits in 1-2 Weeks
: Echo35 June 14, 2011, 12:51:29 PM
Just thought I would mention that we are aiming for next Monday or Tuesday to have the new video and dev diary out.  I don't want to jinx anything, but I think folks will be stunned in a good way.

It's like Christmas in June.
: Re: #12 Will Drop The Pre-Alpha Moniker, And Has Big Surprises -- Hits in 1-2 Weeks
: x4000 June 14, 2011, 01:37:34 PM
Har har. :)
: Re: #12 Will Drop The Pre-Alpha Moniker, And Has Big Surprises -- Hits in 1-2 Weeks
: KingIsaacLinksr June 16, 2011, 04:17:50 AM
Just thought I would mention that we are aiming for next Monday or Tuesday to have the new video and dev diary out.  I don't want to jinx anything, but I think folks will be stunned in a good way.

It's like Christmas in June.
/me punts Echo into December for that comment.... ;)

King
: Re: #12 Will Drop The Pre-Alpha Moniker, And Has Big Surprises -- Hits in 1-2 Weeks
: zespri June 16, 2011, 11:09:40 PM
Are we there yet? ;D
: Re: #12 Will Drop The Pre-Alpha Moniker, And Has Big Surprises -- Hits in 1-2 Weeks
: x4000 June 16, 2011, 11:14:51 PM
Are we there yet? ;D

Getting there! We're on schedule as far as having the code ready for Erik to start working on the video tomorrow night, anyway -- so that's great. :)
: Re: #12 Will Drop The Pre-Alpha Moniker, And Has Big Surprises -- Hits in 1-2 Weeks
: eRe4s3r June 17, 2011, 01:07:05 AM
are we there yet? :D :D
: Re: #12 Will Drop The Pre-Alpha Moniker, And Has Big Surprises -- Hits in 1-2 Weeks
: keith.lamothe June 17, 2011, 09:51:34 AM
are we there yet? :D :D
Don't make me stop this car ;)
: Re: #12 Will Drop The Pre-Alpha Moniker, And Has Big Surprises -- Hits in 1-2 Weeks
: KingIsaacLinksr June 17, 2011, 05:43:38 PM
are we there yet? 

:P

King
: Re: #12 Will Drop The Pre-Alpha Moniker, And Has Big Surprises -- Hits in 1-2 Weeks
: x4000 June 17, 2011, 05:55:42 PM
We're pretty much to the point where all the main work is done on what we want to show you in this video of the game, and now the work begins on the video, the dev diary, and all that.  After a last few hours of a bit more polish and a few last spells that I want to cram in. ;)
: Re: #12 Will Drop The Pre-Alpha Moniker, And Has Big Surprises -- Hits in 1-2 Weeks
: keith.lamothe June 17, 2011, 06:02:16 PM
We're pretty much to the point where all the main work is done on what we want to show you in this video of the game, and now the work begins on the video, the dev diary, and all that.  After a last few hours of a bit more polish and a few last spells that I want to cram in. ;)

Translation based on previous experience with soft deadlines: video will probably be mostly done by sometime Sunday ;)

Deadlines aren't the brick wall, they're the hurdle that you trip on; you come to rest some distance away.
: Re: #12 Will Drop The Pre-Alpha Moniker, And Has Big Surprises -- Hits in 1-2 Weeks
: x4000 June 17, 2011, 06:14:20 PM
Hahaha.  Well, in this case the video work is not mine, so after I'm done with my part I just take the weekend off for the most part until Monday. ;)  Aside from the evenings.
: Re: #12 Will Drop The Pre-Alpha Moniker, And Has Big Surprises -- Hits in 1-2 Weeks
: tigersfan June 17, 2011, 08:32:38 PM
Hahaha.  Well, in this case the video work is not mine, so after I'm done with my part I just take the weekend off for the most part until Monday. ;)  Aside from the evenings.

Well, as Erik's boss, please have him put some speed into it. I know I'm not the only waiting for the big news! :-)

Or better yet, you could maybe give a quick spoiler to all the faithful forum readers of the game and tell us the big news here tonight! :-D


...


Kidding... mostly
: Re: #12 Will Drop The Pre-Alpha Moniker, And Has Big Surprises -- Hits in 1-2 Weeks
: x4000 June 17, 2011, 09:52:56 PM
It's the sort of news that has to come all at once to really explain what all has changed.  I will give you one bit of a preview of the least interesting parts, though: we've got several new spells, including Seize, Fire Touch, and Ride The Lightning (those spells are actually all really cool, but to tell you what they do would get into some stuff that I can't discuss quite yet); we have something like 40 new buildings, and well over 100 new objects; we have several new character animations; we have the clothing colorization so that NPCs look more unique; we have a new inventory screen system, and we're working on finalizing our crafting interface (which won't be shown this video, but will be next time).

And none of that is the big news, not even close. ;)
: Re: #12 Will Drop The Pre-Alpha Moniker, And Has Big Surprises -- Hits in 1-2 Weeks
: Nalgas June 17, 2011, 10:08:50 PM
Ride The Lightning

(http://feeblearms.com/~nalgas/rockon.gif)
: Re: #12 Will Drop The Pre-Alpha Moniker, And Has Big Surprises -- Hits in 1-2 Weeks
: x4000 June 17, 2011, 10:11:12 PM
Hahahah. :)
: Re: #12 Will Drop The Pre-Alpha Moniker, And Has Big Surprises -- Hits in 1-2 Weeks
: Gallant Dragon June 18, 2011, 03:57:17 PM
And none of that is the big news, not even close. ;)

Hurry up with the dev diary!
: Re: #12 Will Drop The Pre-Alpha Moniker, And Has Big Surprises -- Hits in 1-2 Weeks
: keith.lamothe June 18, 2011, 03:59:20 PM
I have to wonder if it's more painful to players to get hit with something like this cold, or more painful to go through the anticipation... (taking DM notes)
: Re: #12 Will Drop The Pre-Alpha Moniker, And Has Big Surprises -- Hits in 1-2 Weeks
: zespri June 18, 2011, 04:17:18 PM
I have to wonder if it's more painful to players to get hit with something like this cold, or more painful to go through the anticipation... (taking DM notes)
You can never please everyone. (Captain Obvious)
: Re: #12 Will Drop The Pre-Alpha Moniker, And Has Big Surprises -- Hits in 1-2 Weeks
: x4000 June 18, 2011, 08:51:50 PM
I figure it's best to give out as much information as can safely be done as soon as it can be done. That's what tends to underpin how I answer that question.
: Re: #12 Will Drop The Pre-Alpha Moniker, And Has Big Surprises -- Hits in 1-2 Weeks
: tigersfan June 18, 2011, 10:39:22 PM
I figure it's best to give out as much information as can safely be done as soon as it can be done. That's what tends to underpin how I answer that question.

I've worked in Customer Service and/or sales a lot, and coming from that standpoint, I tend to agree with you. Even though, personally, I'm fairly impatient, I think that warning us about the impending change is better than just dropping it on us and making it seem like it came out of nowhere.
: Re: #12 Will Drop The Pre-Alpha Moniker, And Has Big Surprises -- Hits in 1-2 Weeks
: x4000 June 20, 2011, 09:12:46 AM
Cool. :)  Well, it's dropping within the hour.  Just the video and an overview post, and then my detailed post about many of the new things will be coming a few hours later, once I write it.
: Re: #12 Will Drop The Pre-Alpha Moniker, And Has Big Surprises -- Hits in 1-2 Weeks
: fbgbt June 20, 2011, 09:57:30 AM
Awesome. Been anxiously checking every hour or so for the update.  ;D
: Re: #12 Will Drop The Pre-Alpha Moniker, And Has Big Surprises -- Hits in 1-2 Weeks
: x4000 June 20, 2011, 10:27:06 AM
Okay, here's part 1 of the update: http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,8704.0.html

It has the video and the big picture diary bits.  A more detailed diary entry will follow later today. :)